April 15, 2012 is Mercy Sunday for the whole the Universal Church. And for us here at Divine Mercy of Our Lord Church here in Mesquite, Texas, we hold this feast with great significance; for this is the only Catholic Church in the Diocese of Dallas dedicated to the Divine Mercy of Our Lord. Every year whenever we celebrate this feast of the church, we renew our commitment to the call and responsibility of proclaiming the message of our Lord of Divine Mercy to the whole world beginning with our own parishioners and promoting the devotion to the Divine Mercy everywhere and to everyone.

It was on April 30, 2000, during the canonization ceremony of St. Faustina Kowalska, the first Saint of the third millennium, that the late Holy Father, Blessed John Paul II, proclaimed this feast for the whole Universal Church. This solemn declaration became the symbol of his own personal faith and devotion to our Lord of Divine Mercy. All throughout his life, the late Pope John Paul became the great apostle of the Divine Mercy and was its powerful spokesperson. When he wrote the Encyclical “Dives in Misericordia” he wanted the official document to become the testament of his unwavering trust in Our Lord of Divine Mercy. In that encyclical, he wrote “The Message of Divine Mercy has always been near and dear to me……I took it with me to the See of Peter and…….it in a sense forms the image of this Pontificate.” In his eyes, he saw the world on its spiral descent unto the culture of death through the rise of relativism and paganism even among believers and entrusted it to the Divine Mercy of Lord.

As a sign of His approval and Blessing upon this faithful disciple and son of the Church, Our Lord granted Pope John Paul II the rarest privilege of meeting his creator precisely on April 3, 2005, the Feast of Divine Mercy. And not too long after that, his successor, our present Pope Benedict XVI, approved the decree for the beatification of Pope John Paul II on Jan. 14, 2011and scheduled the ceremony to be officially celebrated on May 1, the Feast of Divine Mercy that year.

The whole devotion to Divine Mercy started with and through St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who was especially chosen by Our Lord to be His secretary and asked her to write His Divine Messages on a diary. This diary contains the life of St. Faustina and the private conversations she had with our Lord during much of her life. The diary has 1828 articles attributed to the personal handwriting of the saint aided by her spiritual director and guide. The message contained in the diary mostly centered on the generous love and mercy of Our Lord for all humanity.

According to St. Faustina, it was Our Lord Himself who asked her to describe and approved the Image of the Divine Mercy from her own personal conversations, encounters and experiences with our Lord. According to what she wrote in her diary, the Lord appeared to her in this manner:

+February 22, 1931

47 In the evening, when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand [was] raised in the gesture of blessing, the other was touching the garment at the breast. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the breast, there were emanating two large rays, one red, the other pale. In silence I kept my gaze fixed on the Lord; my soul was struck with awe, but also with great joy. After a while, Jesus said to me, Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and [then] throughout the world.

48I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. I also promise victory over [its] enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death. I Myself will defend it as My own glory.

When asked what the red and pale rays that flowed from the breast of Jesus symbolized she wrote:

299When, on one occasion, my confessor told me to ask the Lord Jesus the meaning of the two rays in the image,[77] I answered, "Very well, I will ask the Lord.

During prayer I heard these words within me: The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls...

These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross.

These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him. I desire that the First Sunday after Easter be the Feast of Mercy.

We also learned that from her conversations with Our Lord, St. Faustina told us what our Lord wanted to be done. And that is that on the First Sunday after Easter be the Feast of Mercy. Our Lord also instructed St. Faustina to ask everyone to pray the chaplet of the Divine Mercy every day at 3:00 PM for nine days before the Feast of Mercy starting from Good Friday at 3:00 PM which is the hour of the death of Our Lord on the Cross for all sinners. Furthermore our Lord declared that at 3PM the chaplet of Divine Mercy is to be said everyday for the whole world most especially to the five groups of souls that the Lord specifically mentioned. These are: 1-The Sinners, 2-The Despairing, 3-The Dying, 4-The Suffering, and 5-The Indifferent Souls. These are the souls that need the mercy of God most.

The message of Divine Mercy is the very same message of Our Lady of Fatima. She called for ‘penance, penance, penance’ for the conversion of all sinners. She asked us to pray the rosary daily and dedicate to the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. To the rosary the Fatima Prayer which says: “Omy Jesus, forgive us of our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls into heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy,” was added after each decade.

Indeed the message of the Divine Mercy echoes very closely the call of Our Lady of Fatima. It reminds us of the sinfulness of man and the consequences that sin could bring to humanity. We are all God’s Prodigal children and we live in a Prodigal world. We are all sinners and our sins are before us always. Even those of us who had been baptized often fall back into sin more than we ever want to. And because we are sinners, we are destined to suffer the consequences of our sins and final destiny we deserve. Furthermore, since we are weakened by our sinfulness, we will forever succumb to the temptations that surround us. Despite our best efforts, salvation can never be earned for it is beyond our ability to obtain. That is why God, so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son, so that those who believe in Him, may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)
And because we cannot save ourselves from our sins, we need the mercy of God through the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our salvation does not come from our good words and deed from purely the bountiful mercy of God. We are not saved because we have done good, rather we are saved because God is good and merciful to us. We live good lives and observe the commandments of God, not to obtain the kingdom of God, but that the kingdom of God, which is already ours, thanks to the Redemptive Act of our Lord Jesus Christ, may remain with us forever and never be lost again by sin. The feast of Divine Mercy offers is the celebration of God’s love and mercy for all humanity and so we pray to the Father:

“For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, Have mercy on us and on the whole world.”